Happy Halloween!

On Friday, Kate had a little Halloween party in her dance class at school. She wanted to save her pumpkin costume for later, so she chose to wear her blue and purple tutu.

On the way home, Kate stopped to watch a line of marching ants. Ever since she saw "A Bug's Life," she's been very sympathetic to ants.

It was time to head home, but Kate didn't want to walk through the ants and crush any of them, so she had the idea of doing a Jackie-Joyner-long-jump over the line of ants. This jump was successful. The first attempt, not so much. During her running start, Kate somehow forgot the plan, and ran through the ants instead. She smiled and exclaimed, "Mom, I did it!" I said, "Kate, you were supposed to jump over them!" Kate felt awful. Then said, "Let me try it again."

That evening, we drove to Burbank (also known as "the Valley") to the home of of The Proulx Family -- Geisha Anna, Wizard John, and Bumblebee Maya. They invited us over for dinner and trick-or-treating in their sweet neighorhood.

Kate wanted to be a pumpkin this year, and lucky for us, her cousin, Emma, was a pumpkin last year and sent her costume to us.

Appa forgot his warlock hat at home.

Kate loves "Baby Maya," and has always had a soft spot for "Annaproulx," probably because she has the magic touch around kids and babies.

Kate Pumpkin and the Proulx Pumpkin.

Chris was doing something with the flash here.

This was Kate's first (real) time Trick or Treating, and she had been practicing saying "Trick or Treat!" for months. "I'm so excited, Mom!" At the first house, the woman beamed at "the cutest little pumpkin" and held out a big bowl. Kate's eyes widened at the sight of all the candy, and she picked out a Reese's peanut butter cup. Then she immediately reached for another one, and I said, "Just one, Kate." I could see she was doing everything in her power not to grab fistfuls and take off. The woman said, "You're so cute, you should have another," making Kate very, very happy.

Kate loved wearing her costume and kept saying to Anna Proulx: "Don't turn around, Anna! There's a pumpkin behind you!"

Many of the neighbors went to town with their Halloween decorations.

This house was so dark, Kate could barely see the latex-clad Batgirl handing out candy.

We went back to Anna and John's house, took off our costumes, and had a little story session before heading back home.

Kate got some plastic fangs at school that day and put them on before bed.

While Kate posed, Appa took a bunch of photos. I could hear them cackling in the bathroom.